Retiring Chief Bankruptcy Judge Gonzalez Going to NYU

When New York Bankruptcy Court Chief Judge Arthur J. Gonzalez retires from the bench early next year, he’s going to use the experience he gained presiding over three of the largest-ever bankruptcies to teach at New York University Law School.

Gonzalez, the judge in three Chapter 11 cases you may’ve heard of called Enron, WorldCom and, most recently, Chrysler, will become a senior fellow at NYU Law starting next spring.

Aside from teaching bankruptcy law courses, Gonzalez will be co-director of the school’s Bankruptcy Workshop and its Galgay Fellows Program, NYU said in a press release.

It’s a return to dedicated teaching for Gonzalez, who earned his master’s in teaching from Brooklyn College and taught in the New York City School System for 13 years before beginning his law career. Gonzalez, born in 1947, moved from the Internal Revenue Service to private practice and then to the U.S. Trustee’s office before his 1995 appointment as a judge for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.

Gonzalez, who has worked as an adjunct professor for the past three years, said, “My tenure as a bankruptcy judge has been an exceptionally fulfilling and professionally rewarding experience, and I will be forever grateful to have been given the opportunity to serve.”

Presiding over three of the most complex bankruptcies in U.S. history shaped Gonzalez into a pragmatic judge who quickly cut through much of the minutiae that often bogs down bankruptcy hearings. He recently filled in for Judge Martin Glenn in the case of Borders Group Inc., and made the decision to allow the company to immediately start closing its stores, saying the company satisfied the high threshold to get such an order so quickly after filing for bankruptcy.

Borders’s lawyers proved “not only the loss of money, but the loss of management’s time and efforts toward reorganization,” if he didn’t approve the order quickly, Gonzalez said.

Besides the master’s in teaching, Gonzalez earned his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and an LL.M. in taxation from NYU in 1990.

About Bankruptcy Beat

From Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review, exclusive coverage of corporate bankruptcies, companies headed for trouble and the latest trends in bankruptcy law, distressed investing and corporate restructuring. Lead writer Pat Fitzgerald and Daily Bankruptcy Review reporters in Washington, New York and Wilmington, Del., provide insight into the big cases, who’s next to fall and what’s making news across the bankruptcy market.